iPod: Network Solutions

a MacCentral Article writes how one team uses an iPod to simply their cluster setup with their XServe

.....................................iNquiry combines the technology The BioTeam developed for Texas A&M into a system that other bioscientists can use to create their own Xserve clusters in a matter of minutes instead of weeks, according to Van Etten. The secret is another Apple product -- the iPod.

Wholly self-contained in about 2GB of storage space on the iPod, iNquiry uses a Perl-based script that's controlled through a simple graphical configuration utility. The user tells the configuration utility how to configure the Xserve cluster, how many nodes it has, how the network is configured, and how to use the individual drive bays in each Xserve.

Each Xserve is then rebooted off the iPod, through the Xserve's FireWire interface. A script automatically executes and configures the Xserve, which takes about 15 minutes per system.